Dave Grohl's two personas deep-six `Echoes, Silence ...'.

Byline: Craig SEMON

COLUMN: RECORDINGS

Foo Fighters 

"Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace"

(Roswell/RCA)

* *-1/2

There's an episode of the classic "Star Trek" series in which a transporter malfunction splits Capt. James T. Kirk into halves, one weak and indecisive, the other violent and ill-tempered.

Mr. Spock, with all his Vulcan logic, concludes that neither Kirk can survive without the other.

A similar occurrence happened to ex-Nirvana drummer-turned-Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl in 2005. Proving he is his own worst enemy, Grohl released a half-baked, half-electric/half-acoustic double-disc, "In Your Honor." This ambitious but uneven project featured Grohl rocking out like a Foo Fighter on the plugged disc and sounding like he was channeling the spirit of Dan Fogelberg on the unplugged one.

Now, Grohl takes this failed split personality dynamic to the next level with "Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace," a single disc that has its share of pristine, power pop opuses but is

burdened by plenty of acoustic snorers.

When did the Foo Fighters (Grohl, guitarist Chris Shiflett, bassist Nate Mendel and drummer Taylor Hawkins) become a bunch of old fuddy-duddies? Maybe I'm old fashion but I like my "Foo" with some fight in it.

"Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace" starts off promisingly enough with the leadoff track and first single, "The Pretender." With the Foo's calm-before-the-storm dynamic, the song starts non-threateningly enough with Grohl warmly lamenting the lack of artistic integrity in the world alongside a tranquil acoustic guitar shuffle. Without warning (but still totally expected) the song erupts with throat-shredding vocals, snarling electric guitars, locomotive bass lines and pummeling drums.

Through caressing whispers and tortured lyrics, Grohl tenderly aches and quakes alongside softly plucked acoustic guitar on "Let It Die." At the midway point, the song momentarily has a welcome burst of choppy electric guitar chords and crashing drum beats but quickly retreats to its cascading, cushiony confines. Finally, almost as if Grohl is teasing the listener, the tried and true (and arguably getting a tad tired) Foo Fighter formula kicks in with howling vocals, crunchy guitar and powder-keg drums. So much for Mr. Sensitive.

After the power pop-rocker "Erase/Replace" (which is track three), the transporter malfunctions.

"Long Road to Ruin" is Bon Jovi-ish in nature, minus the arena anthem hooks. Sounding as if he's in love with the idea of rebellion (as long as he keeps a safe distance), a passive Grohl warmly gushes, "Let's say we take this town/No king or queen of any state/Get up to shut it down/Open the streets and raise the gates." Yikes! Instead of taking us on the "Long Road to Ruin," Grohl ventures forth with maudlin, middle-of-the-road fare.

On "Come Alive," Grohl doesn't know if he wants to be a low-rent Eddie Vedder or Trent Reznor. Either way, he fails miserably. Describing his troubled emotional state (but he might as well have been describing this troubled disc), Grohl whispers, "Desperate and meaningless/All filled up with emptiness/Felt like everything was said and done." Whether he's going for nihilistic musings or soul-cleansing purging, Grohl is far too delicate to pull it off here. By the time the song comes alive in the last minute and the half of this misguided, five-minute opus, it is the musical equivalent of an alarm clock going off in a deep coma.

Despite having the album's best image (of breathing in silence like a drag of a cigarette), "Stranger Things Have Happened" is pretty strait-laced for a song with the word "Stranger" in its title. With an intimate, acoustic guitar strum, Grohl cries out, "I can change. I can change. I can change/But who you want me to be?" How about the Grohl of a decade ago?

Through sly sarcasm and call-and-response choruses, Grohl sets out to shake up the overly sensitive emo scene on one of the album's better tracks, "Cheer Up, Boys (Your Make Up Is Running)."Accompanied by a stomping guitar line and pitter-patter drum beats, Grohl - who knows a bit about teen angst (after all, he was in Nirvana, the band that made angst fashionable) - cries out, "There's a world out there/Don't you deny me."

"Statues" starts off as a bluesy jam before retreating to a sappy piano ballad.

Not only does the song reek of sentimentality, it boasts messed-up logic, as evident in the gooey chorus, "We're just ordinary people, you and me/Time will turn us into statues, eventually." Huh?

The album closes out with another schmaltzy piano ballad, "Home." In what sounds like one-part American Red Cross PSA, one-part Lennon-McCartney for Idiots, Grohl sings about the security of having a roof over one's head and the family and friends he has loved and lost. Grohl is poignant, painful and pointless as he pontificates, "People I've loved/I have no regrets/Some I remember/Some I forget/Some of them living/Some of them dead/All I want is to be home." In the end, this "Home" should be condemned.

ART: PHOTO

CUTLINE: Dave Grohl

PHOTOG: ASSOCIATED PRESS